Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut is out today on PS4. Space combat has returned to consoles for the first time in what feels like millennia.

Strike Suit Zero was born out of a passion for space combat and the sad realisation that the genre was severely under-represented. As game developers, we had the opportunity to rectify that. The Born Ready Games team grew up on a steady diet of Wing Commander, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Freelancer, Freespace — all the classics from the 90’s heyday. We wanted to create a space dogfighter in the same vein, but with an updated look and feel that would make it relevant to today’s audience.

The first thing we did was introduce a mech to the heart of the game. The Strike Suit — a fighter that can transform into a devastating suit of space armor at the touch of a button — eliminates issues with older games we refer to as “jousting” and “circle chasing.” The Strike Suit is quick and agile, allowing the player to turn 180 degrees quickly and take out any enemies that have got behind them. As a result, Strike Suit Zero has a much quicker pace than older space combat games.

The Strike Suit itself was designed by Junji Okubo, the mechanical designer behind Appleseed, Steel Battalion, and Infinite Space, among others. We combined Junji’s designs with an original soundtrack from Paul Ruskay (Homeworld), who collaborated with Japanese singer-songwriter Kokia on a number of tracks. As such, there’s an interesting blend of East-meets-West across all facets of the game’s design.

As developers, it’s not often you get the chance to revisit your game; to spruce up the visuals, add anything time didn’t permit the first time around, and to make improvements based on community feedback. The resulting game — the Director’s Cut — is the definitive Strike Suit Zero experience. The campaign’s been restructured, meaning the player gets into the Strike Suit — and thus the meat of the action — much quicker. We’ve added a load of new VO, expanding the story and — crucially — updated the look of the game.

Dan Lodge, Lead Artist, writes:

It’s not often an artist gets a second chance at doing the art for the same game. Luckily for the artist team here at Born Ready, that’s exactly what we’ve had the opportunity to do. One of the first teams in recent times to take on the challenge of producing a modern space combat game, we had very few direct references to draw from when we made Strike Suit Zero. This resulted in us cutting some corners that, as a small indie developer, we simply didn’t have time to fix for the original release.

Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut has given us the opportunity to directly apply the lessons we learned the first time around and revisit so many of the things we had wanted to before. With over a gigabyte of extra texture memory unlocked for us to use on the PS4 version, we immediately ditched the tiling texture technique we had to use in the original.

We set about diligently rebuilding assets from the original game at an incredible pace and with a dramatic increase in quality. Great leaps were made in our approach, particularly to texturing, both technically and stylistically. Many of the ships in game are now truer to the original designs by Junji Okubo and they all have a much more coherent and convincing look.

When our time had run out, the team had exceeded our targets and replaced almost every asset in the game; the difference is clear.

Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut is available on PlayStation Store today for $19.99. To address a couple of questions I anticipate being asked: the PS4 version of the game takes advantage of DualShock 4’s speaker for radio-chatter, and the touch pad for targeting. You can also remote play the game using your PS Vita. Lovely.

Other questions? Hit up the comments section below and I’ll do my best to answer. Alternatively, find us on Twitter at @StrikeSuitZero and @BornReadyGames. Thanks for reading, and from everybody at Born Ready Games: we hope you enjoy the game.

Hullo, I’m Jamin Smith, Community Manager and writery person over at Born Ready Games. I’m here to announce that Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut will be heading to PS4 later this month. If mechs, space, and blowing things to smithereens with mechs (in space) are your thing, read on.

Strike Suit Zero is a space combat game that harkens back to the days of Wing Commander, Freelancer, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter — all the classics — but with a mech twist to the dogfighting, and a next-gen lick of paint. At the heart of our game is a ship that can transform from a traditional fighter to a lethal suit of space armor: the Strike Suit. This really changes up the core concept of dogfighting, allowing pilots to transform, turn 180 degrees, and unleash a barrage of missiles without having to go through the laborious procedure of ‘jousting’ that older space combat titles relied on.

The Strike Suit was designed by Junji Okubo (Appleseed: Ex-Machina, Steel Battalion, Infinite Space), who has a very functional approach to mechanical design. As such, the Strike Suit unfolds much like a real piece of machinery would; there are no Michael Bay-esque transformations here.

Fans of Homeworld will also be pleased to hear that we’ve enlisted the services of Paul Ruskay for the Strike Suit Zero soundtrack, too. Paul has collaborated with Japanese singer-songwriter Kokia (Tales of Innocence, Gunslinger Girl: II Teatrino) in bringing the soundtrack to life, resulting in an interesting blend of East meets West — a notion that is apparent in all facets of the game’s design.

The development of the game was put under a bit of strain over Christmas when our studio was trashed by some pretty serious flooding. The river Wey here in Guildford burst its banks on Christmas Eve, and our studio (and poor neighbours Hello Games) was submerged in flood water.

Worry not, however. While lots of equipment and personal items were lost, we were able to rescue our machines in time, and successfully moved the team upstairs where development got back on track as quickly as possible. As such, Strike Suit Zero is well on track for its March launch.

We’ve furnished PlayStation.Blog with some never-before-seen concept art from Strike Suit Zero: the Grados Cruiser, Pegasus Cruiser, and concept enemy Fighters can all be seen below with notes from our Lead Artist, Dan Lodge.

Grados CruiserThe Grados cruiser is a bit of a Born Ready art team favorite. We’d love to build this ship and see that massive fixed cannon in action one day. Check out the distinctive design of the rear hull and the engine housings.

Pegasus CruiserA little more streamlined than the Argama U.N.E cruiser found in Strike Suit Zero, the Pegasus was designed as a colonial frigate hunter. I think Junji really nailed the engine design on this one.

FightersJunji sent us a good range of proposed designs for fighters. These are some of the designs that didn’t quite make it in.

You can also check out a 3D model of the U.N.E. Frigate, which has been re-modelled and upscaled for the Director’s Cut. You can get up close and personal, and bask in the glory of those extra polys in the embed above.

Thanks for reading! For more information on the game, connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/03/07/strike-suit-zero-directors-cut-coming-to-ps4-this-month/feed/43http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/strike-suit-promo.jpg3.46Community Manager, Born Ready Games434All Zombies Must Die! shuffling onto PSN December 27http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/12/22/all-zombies-must-die-shuffling-onto-psn-december-27/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/12/22/all-zombies-must-die-shuffling-onto-psn-december-27/#commentsThu, 22 Dec 2011 17:30:07 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=66442All Zombies Must Die! will be ambling onto the PlayStation Store December 27.
AZMD is a twin-stick shooter taken to lofty new heights with a bevy of RPG features and four player co-op. As the zombie apocalypse arrives in the town of Deadhill it falls to four unlikely heroes to defend humanity and save the day. Jack, the gamer; Rachel, the girl; Brian, the geek and Luxo, the alien must undertake insane quests, craft crazy weapons and generally put down as many zombies as humanly possible. With comical references and a fourth-wall-breaking script to tie it all together, AZMD presents the zombie apocalypse in a whole new light.
To coincide with the festive period, we also have a range of zombie companions arriving on PlayStation Home. While it’s true that all zombies must die, and the undead are foul creatures that should be riddled with bullets without a moment’s hesitation, they do make rather charming pets. Jogger, SWAT and Crazy zombie companions – in addition to Luxo the alien - can be downloaded from PlayStation Home TODAY!
]]>Hello! Today I bring news that our Arcade-RPG All Zombies Must Die! will be ambling onto the PlayStation Store December 27.

AZMD is a twin-stick shooter taken to lofty new heights with a bevy of RPG features and four player co-op. As the zombie apocalypse arrives in the town of Deadhill it falls to four unlikely heroes to defend humanity and save the day. Jack, the gamer; Rachel, the girl; Brian, the geek and Luxo, the alien must undertake insane quests, craft crazy weapons and generally put down as many zombies as humanly possible. With comical references and a fourth-wall-breaking script to tie it all together, AZMD presents the zombie apocalypse in a whole new light.

To coincide with the festive period, we also have a range of zombie companions arriving on PlayStation Home. While it’s true that all zombies must die, and the undead are foul creatures that should be riddled with bullets without a moment’s hesitation, they do make rather charming pets. Jogger, SWAT and Crazy zombie companions – in addition to Luxo the alien – can be downloaded from PlayStation Home TODAY!

From all of us at doublesix – Merry Christmas and happy zombie hunting!

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/12/22/all-zombies-must-die-shuffling-onto-psn-december-27/feed/22http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/6552888889_bab345f4d5_b.jpg3.26Community Manager, Born Ready Games220All Zombies Must Die! Brings Big Heads and Zombies to PlayStation Homehttp://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/10/28/all-zombies-must-die-brings-big-heads-and-zombies-to-playstation-home/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/10/28/all-zombies-must-die-brings-big-heads-and-zombies-to-playstation-home/#commentsSat, 29 Oct 2011 02:21:12 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=62957Burn Zombie Burn! We’re clearly not done murdering zombies. In our upcoming arcade-RPG All Zombies Must Die! the idea is simple: you kill all zombies. It’s one of those ‘it does what it says in the title’ kind of things. The game is a mix of weapons-based arena combat and light RPG elements and pits a Gamer, a Girl, a Mad Scientist and an Alien against six billion zombies to defend the world’s supply of delicious, supple brains. All Zombies Must Die! drops up to four players into the town of Deadhill, where they must mow their way through ranks of brain-hungry monsters with a variety of weaponry while completing quests served up by the game’s gripping storyline. We’re combining elements of action and role-playing, including character leveling, weapons crafting and numerous quests. The graphics reflect the silly yet sinister nature of the gameplay with a bright, comic style. All Zombies Must Die! will be hitting the PlayStation Network later this year.
But before the game releases, we’ve got something special in the works for PlayStation Home folks, just in time for Halloween.]]>

Hello! You may remember Doublesix Games from 2009’s Burn Zombie Burn! We’re clearly not done murdering zombies. In our upcoming arcade-RPG All Zombies Must Die! the idea is simple: you kill all zombies. It’s one of those ‘it does what it says in the title’ kind of things. The game is a mix of weapons-based arena combat and light RPG elements and pits a Gamer, a Girl, a Mad Scientist and an Alien against six billion zombies to defend the world’s supply of delicious, supple brains. All Zombies Must Die! drops up to four players into the town of Deadhill, where they must mow their way through ranks of brain-hungry monsters with a variety of weaponry while completing quests served up by the game’s gripping storyline. We’re combining elements of action and role-playing, including character leveling, weapons crafting and numerous quests. The graphics reflect the silly yet sinister nature of the gameplay with a bright, comic style. All Zombies Must Die! will be hitting the PlayStation Network later this year.

But before the game releases, we’ve got something special in the works for PlayStation Home folks, just in time for Halloween. With the All Zombies Must Die! “Big Head Pack”, now available in the PlayStation Home Mall, you’ll be able to don oversized heads of two characters from the game: Jack the gamer and Luxo the alien. In addition to this, a third mask allows you to shuffle about PlayStation Home as one of the titular zombies. (Note: please remember to groan and shout “braaaaaiiiiiinnnnnns” if you’re going to do this)

While clearly zombies are horrific creatures that should be peppered with shotgun shells on sight (all zombies must die, remember?), wouldn’t it be nice to have one of the little green fellas ambling along beside you? Indeed it would. To compliment the first Big Head Pack, PlayStation Home will also be getting six companions on Monday, October 31st; two zombies and four mutants, who will faithfully trot along beside your avatar. With your comically oversized head and a pet mutant shuffling about by your side, you’ll certainly be conveying the right image this Halloween.
The Big Head Pack sells for $3.99, giving you all three heads for both male and female avatars, while the lovable zombie companions will sell individually for $2.99